Post by: J_L_B on January 24, 2009, 01:42:26 PM
When will bowling ball manufacturers step up to the plate and protect the retailers (pro shops) that have been there, selling their products for 40+ years?
When will bowling ball companies realize that allowing internet retailers to "make up" their own prices only devalues their products? In the long run it only forces them to release balls at a much quicker rate to make up for the loss in value.
Is every ball company afraid of being the first and having none of the others follow suit?
It's obvious most, if not all of them do not care about individual pro shops, only about selling the most balls at any price.
Post by: Russell on January 24, 2009, 09:57:43 PM
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http://www.myspace.com/rlrussell
The artist formerly known as "jabroni"
Edited on 1/24/2009 10:58 PM
Post by: six pack on January 24, 2009, 10:07:03 PM
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The harder I try the harder they fall
Post by: charlest on January 25, 2009, 05:42:52 AM
or am I laboring under a misapprehension?
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"None are so blind as those who will not see."
Post by: johns811 on January 25, 2009, 05:52:06 AM
Post by: scotts33 on January 25, 2009, 06:32:22 AM
Take a look at eBay with dealers dumping new product (TM, Callaway, etc) on the market at lower prices than suggested.
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Scott
Post by: leftyinsnellville on January 25, 2009, 07:37:21 AM
Regardless, in order for bowling ball companies to follow your suggestion, all of them would have to agree to sell their products at a set price, with no single company breaking ranks. That's a very delicate line to balance because the federal government prevents collusion in price setting. (The Feds have done a bang-up job using this law to keep the oil companies in check...NOT!) All it would take to break this fragile balance is for one company to start getting beat by the competition by either bad luck or bad planning and they'll allow their balls to be sold at a lower price in order to survive until the next cycle. Some of the other companies will start slashing prices too, and the next thing you know all but the most popular balls are being sold for less than $140...some for even less than $100.
Bowling balls are not that complex of a product to produce, the only difference between most balls is a dash of this chemical here and a tweaking of that core there. Bowling ball manufacturing is mostly about marketing and price point strategies. Look at how Ebonite markets and sets the prices of its products now that they own more than half of the major ball companies. Study the different prices being set by Hammer versus Columbia versus Track versus Ebonite. They have every price point well covered and have developed a strategy to smother the competition while allowing each branch of the Ebonite division to make money.
If your business is dependant on ball sales for survival, and you are losing a good chunk of your business to on-line retailers, it's time to think about restructuring your business. If you're going make a living selling bowling balls, you had better be a cost-leader (move lots of inventory at the lowest price) or figure out a way to differentiate yourself from the competition. Perhaps you should study how Ace Hardware is surviving in the midst of the home improvement mega-stores dominating the market. Ace recognizes that people have a very difficult time getting someone to help them at Home Depot and Lowe's, so they've focused their strategy on providing superior service. Some on-line retailers offer free drilling but I would imagine that the final fit must be rather generic. Figure out way to exploit that. Recruit the best bowler in your area to help market yourself. Give him steep discounts or free equipment in exchange for him lauding your services. He throws a three hundred and the first words out of his mouth are how a custom fit ball with the proper specs from your shop makes all the difference between good and great.
What are some of the other weaknesses of on-line retailers that you can exploit? Customers can't try out a ball on-line. Do you sponsor demo days with various ball companies? Ball companies can only market on-line. You have access to your customers while they are actually bowling. Is there a better time to sell? Are you at the local bowling center during league offering advice while your customers are actually bowling? If your shop is in the center itself, are you sitting in the shop waiting for the customer to come to you? Do you advertise in the local center? Are you doing anything to get more customers through your door?
What are you doing to market the sport locally to attract more customers? You know how people sponsor other people for $1 a mile on those walk-a-thons? You can do the same thing by creating bowl-a-thons for kids to raise money for stuff like band trips or adults to raise money for a local charity. Get the local radio celebs involved and try to con them into doing a remote from the center on the day of the event. Then once you have them in the door, market the hell out of your products and league bowling.
Are there any other weaknesses of the on-line retailers besides inferior products and service? If not, have you tried to figure out a way to join forces with the on-line retailers? Rather than shipping the ball directly to the customer, see if you can work out a deal where you're the local driller for that on-line retailer and they'll ship the ball to you to be drilled with a custom fit. This could either involve the on-line retailers charging for the drilling up front and paying you, or the customer paying you directly.
The last thing that I'll say is to confirm your conclusion that the ball companies do not care for the pro-shop owner. But if you think they ever did, you're just fooling yourself. Selling bowling balls is a business and the business of business is to make money, not friends. They'll love you while you're selling their products, but as soon as you're unable to move product they'll drop you like a bad habit.
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( o )( o )
Edited on 1/25/2009 9:23 AM
Post by: Hamburglar on January 25, 2009, 08:18:17 AM
quote:
Ping is the only major brand that I am aware of that maintains MAP pricing and will pull a dealers ability to sell their product.
Take a look at eBay with dealers dumping new product (TM, Callaway, etc) on the market at lower prices than suggested.
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Scott
I worked in the golf business for 20 years as a Pro. Golf Shops/on-line retailers can sell equipment for whatever price they want to. The manufacturers only set a limit on what price they can advertise the equipment for. That would be like Titlelist telling me I couldn't advertise their new driver for less than $399. So, I run an add in the local newspaper saying that the new Titleist driver is $399 but when a customer comes, I could sell it to them for less if I wanted to. Ever notice the "Call for price" notes in most of the golf equipment catalogs???
But you are right about Ping...you can not sell their equipment for less than a certain price and if you get caught, you will lose your account with them. I know several pro shops in VA that lost their accounts a few years back...including a friend of mine.
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That which doesn't kill you will only make you stronger, that which doesn't make you stronger is a waste of time!
Edited on 1/25/2009 9:28 AM
Post by: jd1319 on January 25, 2009, 10:39:32 PM
Post by: Atochabsh on January 25, 2009, 11:46:21 PM
All the pro shops can do is sell their service and ability to fix previous bad drills of wierd stat bowling balls, that undoubledly came off the internet to
begin with, and sell what they can to their good customers and work of mouth. A good patient fit with a senior or youth bowler, much less any other bowler, is worth its weight in gold. But local pro shops are left with making less then $5 on a ball they had to pay good money for (in 30 days). So in a sense the local pro shops are having to be a bit of a scavenger, which is NOT their preferred diet. We now have to live off bad drills from online pro shops and neighboring shops plugs and redrills. Hoping to make bad stat and "pro pin" balls work for your average bowler.
Erin
Post by: Juggernaut on January 26, 2009, 07:46:57 AM
They are trying to sell enough equipment to keep their doors open and their employees working. They, when forced into this position, will do whatever it takes to stay open for the here and now and will deal with the consequences at a later date. This includes selling to anyone and everyone who will pay their asking price, a price that MAY vary, depending on the size of the impending sale.
GOD knows, if I had a company and had that same choice to make, I would feel very bad perhaps, but I would do it. I would feel a responsibility and an obligation to my employees and investors to keep going as long as possible, no matter what I had to sell or who I had to sell it to. At times like these, the rules don't count, it may well become a "survival of the fittest" situation, and you want to be the fittest.
P.S. Man do I miss the days when bowling balls lasted for years, you kept them long enough to have your name engraved on them, and the only reason you owned two was because you got a two ball bag for Christmas and you needed another one to balance the bag correctly.
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Norm Duke was right
Good transactions list in my profile
My Bowl.com member page (http://"http://members.bowl.com/SearchUSBC/ViewMember.aspx?prefix=2243&suffix=4831")
Post by: bowlerdawg on January 26, 2009, 07:58:56 AM
they may sweet talk you , and be all buddy buddy, but all they want is volume, and i guess they are finding it on the internet
with the rare exception
i buy my balls online, and take it to my local guy to drill.
he's ok with it, because he says he cant get it for the prices im getting it for
so he says go for it, and bring it in when you get it, and he punches it up
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member : F.O.S.
pin shredder @ the sawmill
im on a magic carpet ride
Post by: jls on January 26, 2009, 09:47:12 AM
quote:quote:
Ping is the only major brand that I am aware of that maintains MAP pricing and will pull a dealers ability to sell their product.
Take a look at eBay with dealers dumping new product (TM, Callaway, etc) on the market at lower prices than suggested.
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Scott
I worked in the golf business for 20 years as a Pro. Golf Shops/on-line retailers can sell equipment for whatever price they want to. The manufacturers only set a limit on what price they can advertise the equipment for. That would be like Titlelist telling me I couldn't advertise their new driver for less than $399. So, I run an add in the local newspaper saying that the new Titleist driver is $399 but when a customer comes, I could sell it to them for less if I wanted to. Ever notice the "Call for price" notes in most of the golf equipment catalogs???
But you are right about Ping...you can not sell their equipment for less than a certain price and if you get caught, you will lose your account with them. I know several pro shops in VA that lost their accounts a few years back...including a friend of mine.
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That which doesn't kill you will only make you stronger, that which doesn't make you stronger is a waste of time!
Edited on 1/25/2009 9:28 AM
Ping and Titleist tell the pro shops what they must sell for. The Other major brands have MAP pricing. This is a price you can advertise for, no less.
However, I have many friends who Own golf pro shops. They pretty much all sell at the MAP prices for all brands. However they can if they choose, sell for less as long as they don't advertise it. Except for Ping and Titleist.
Ping even closed an account on a military base a few years ago, because they were giving a 10% discount.
But in the golf industry, the golf pro shops are indeed the direct customers to the golf companies. Therefore the companies have better control on pricing.
In the bowling industry, Pro shops and online dealers buy from dist. The dist. buys direct from the ball companies. And this is where the problem comes in. Any online shop or pro shop can sell the balls for whatever price they want.
Dist. may be told by a few ball companies what they must sell at. But once sold to a pro shop or online dealer, there is no set price anyone must follow.
Certain dist. have used this loophole to set up fronts, >> online dealers.
They sell to them at the floor price, but since they own them, they are selling to themselves. Therefor if you see a price that is way below the floor price, that online shop is really not losing money. They are the dist.
And if these certain dist. are audited, they can easily show that they billed the online dealers at the floor price.
Some people on this site seem to think these online dealers are big like Wal Mart. And can afford loss leaders. That is not so!!!!!
Certain online dealers are nothing more then fronts for certain dist.
And by doing this, those dist. are cutting the throats out of pro shops.
Now hopefully, pro shops who deal with these certain dist. will wake up and find honest dist. to buy from.
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jls
Post by: qstick777 on January 26, 2009, 11:07:14 AM
quote:
In the bowling industry, Pro shops and online dealers buy from dist. The dist. buys direct from the ball companies. And this is where the problem comes in. Any online shop or pro shop can sell the balls for whatever price they want.
Dist. may be told by a few ball companies what they must sell at. But once sold to a pro shop or online dealer, there is no set price anyone must follow.
Certain dist. have used this loophole to set up fronts, >> online dealers.
They sell to them at the floor price, but since they own them, they are selling to themselves. Therefor if you see a price that is way below the floor price, that online shop is really not losing money. They are the dist.
And if these certain dist. are audited, they can easily show that they billed the online dealers at the floor price.
Some people on this site seem to think these online dealers are big like Wal Mart. And can afford loss leaders. That is not so!!!!!
Certain online dealers are nothing more then fronts for certain dist.
And by doing this, those dist. are cutting the throats out of pro shops.
Now hopefully, pro shops who deal with these certain dist. will wake up and find honest dist. to buy from.
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jls
Well said, jls!
The beef people has is with the distributors, not the manufacturers.
The manufacturers are all about volume - and they have to be. Manufacturing and warehouse space is expensive. It's expensive to operate, and it's expensive to not operate. You can't have a stable workforce if you only run your equipment a few days a week, and it's wasted money to pay utility bills for something that isn't being used to close to full capability.
Go watch a couple of these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH43_Ae-sHo - Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVmNsR7iBiQ - Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDUl1512EaY
Ebonite makes up to 5000 balls per day.
They can pour a core every 12 seconds, all day long.
Now, going from some of the information that has been thrown around here the past few years:
It costs around $15k for a core and core molds.
It costs around $25 to produce a ball.
I'm not going to speculate on the costs for research & development, testing, etc, and I don't have a clue as to what it takes as far as the number of employees, salaries, expenses, etc.
The manufacturers need to be all about volume. They would never be able to survive if they had to sell to individual shops. Besides, 900G tried that and all they got was a bunch of complaints that people couldn't get the equipment. Shops didn't want to order from the manufacturer, they wanted to use the distributors.
Anybody with an ounce of business sense will tell you that somebody that wants to buy 500 items is going to want a better price than somebody that is buying 2-4 items at a time.
If you have the chance to move more product, you're more likely to sell to the guys that are walking in ready to buy as much of your product as you can make.
Now, if anybody has any information from the distributor's side, please share:
What are the distributors paying for the balls?
Do the distributors get credit for defects? The pro shops deal with distributors because they will replace the defects. Do the distributors eat this cost? In rare cases the manufacturers will step up and handle situations, but it is generally done via pro shop and distributor.
As jls has said, some distributors have websites. These are the same sites that typically don't handle defects and returns - or often make you pay extra for a warranty.
Now if those distributors are paying $60 for a ball, selling it on their website for $90, but charging pro shops $95-100 for the same ball, it has nothing to do with the manufacturers.
A manufacturer could try to implement a minimum pricing strategy to prevent this, but I'm willing to bet that one of the following would happen:
a) manufacturer would not be able to patrol and enforce,
b) distributors would tell the manufacturer to "pound sand" and reduce the number or items it purchases. The manufacturer would then be stuck with product - would have to be able to store this product, slow down production, etc. They would produce less balls, and most likely the prices would go up due to increased costs to the manufacturers.
Pro shops need to understand that they are primarily selling a service. If they need to raise they price of their service, then so be it. They need to get out of the mindset that need to make $x per ball sale to pay the bills. The current retail market is horrible and margins are slim. People are price sensitive and loyalty is almost non-existent. Pro shops need to survive on their skills for fitting, drilling, layouts, and other advice, not by making a few dollars on a ball markup.
Last time I checked, they still haven't invented a way for an on-line shop to measure my hand, test my flexibility, or watch me bowl. Many will take measurements off an existing ball, but bowlers still need somebody to get that first ball drilled properly. Do a good job with that and you shouldn't have any problem gaining a customer.
I have yet to see a shop that doesn't have ala carte pricing:
blank drill = $xx
finger inserts = $x
thumb slug = $y
plug & drill = $z
Or, maybe I'm just crazy?
Post by: SCOTT-Bowlingcom on January 28, 2009, 08:44:15 AM
quote:
Are there any other weaknesses of the on-line retailers besides inferior products and service? If not, have you tried to figure out a way to join forces with the on-line retailers? Rather than shipping the ball directly to the customer, see if you can work out a deal where you're the local driller for that on-line retailer and they'll ship the ball to you to be drilled with a custom fit. This could either involve the on-line retailers charging for the drilling up front and paying you, or the customer paying you directly.
In regards to this topic, I would like to direct your attention to another post I have put up:
http://www.ballreviews.com/Forum/Replies.asp?CategoryID=5&ForumID=16&TopicID=226617
Thanks
Scott Pinkston
Bowling.com